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Claimant's opinion: I am a 70 yr old retired Licensed Professional Counselor having spent 35 yrs full time in my profession.I transferred my IRA to Fidelity about 9 yrs ago and I am a frequent trader. Last week i made a few calls to Fidelity service team in regard to funds that were not available that i believed should have been available. It happened twice so i made two calls re: the issue. I had one customer service rep prior to the two calls who I could not understand well due to their voice. I have had a severe high frequency loss for 50 yrs due to ototoxic drugs administered when i was dying of peritonitis. I wear hearing aides but they do not make my hearing perfect and must ask for repetition if somebody has an accent or has a soft voice. Today i went to make a trade early morning and was shocked that the msg box said my account was restricted from trading. I called Fidelity and was told i could no longer trade. I asked to speak to a supervisor. He reiterated the same. I wanted to know why and he told me it was in "my best interest" and their firm had an obligation to end my trading. I wanted to know the reason and he referenced my 3 past calls. They felt i was not competent to trade due to my calls. He would not provide any other details. I had incurred recent losses over the last year but truly this is MY money not theirs. I asked if day traders who lose lots of money have their accts restricted to which the supervisor said no. He said my restriction was based on my phone calls. Since i do not hear and ask for repetition and may also not get a word or words clear I can only surmise that they thought i was demented???I am transferring my money to another firm and will see if i can take some legal action against them for discrimination based on age and hearing loss. This has been very stressful to me and I lost a few thousand i could have made today on trading oil and bitcoin stocks. They had no right or business to restrict my trading. I am a very intelligent competent degreed individual. How can they have my 33,400.00 in my account and tell me I cannot trade it because "they" have determined it is in my best interest not to? This is blatant blind discrimination and is wrong.

"I am a 70 yr old retired Licensed Professional Counselor having spent 35 yrs full time in my profession.I transferred my IRA to Fidelity about 9 yrs ago and I am a frequent trader. Last week i made a few calls to Fidelity service team in regard to funds that were not available that i believed should have been available. It happened twice so i made two calls re: the issue. I had one customer service rep prior to the two calls who I could not understand well due to their voice. I have had a severe high frequency loss for 50 yrs due to ototoxic drugs administered when i was dying of peritonitis. I wear hearing aides but they do not make my hearing perfect and must ask for repetition if somebody has an accent or has a soft voice. Today i went to make a trade early morning and was shocked that the msg box said my account was restricted from trading. I called Fidelity and was told i could no longer trade. I asked to speak to a supervisor. He reiterated the same. I wanted to know why and he told me it was in "my best interest" and their firm had an obligation to end my trading. I wanted to know the reason and he referenced my 3 past calls. They felt i was not competent to trade due to my calls. He would not provide any other details. I had incurred recent losses over the last year but truly this is MY money not theirs. I asked if day traders who lose lots of money have their accts restricted to which the supervisor said no. He said my restriction was based on my phone calls. Since i do not hear and ask for repetition and may also not get a word or words clear I can only surmise that they thought i was demented???I am transferring my money to another firm and will see if i can take some legal action against them for discrimination based on age and hearing loss."

"I had an even worse situation with Fidelity. They promoted a "no interest loan" program from a third party. I asked the Rep if that means I could borrow the money for any purpose and pay it back in a year at no interest. He said absolutely. I took out the loan and then found months later that I was being charged interest. They said the program only applied to new asset transfers. It cost me a lot of money even while I had a cash balance in my account. They said they had no control over it since it was a third party program and they were only promoting it. Classy- huh? They've lost a all my business since then."

This is too small an amount. I had to transfer my IRA funds to another brokerage and i could not trade for over one week. 5,000. would be minimum acceptable for the inconvenience and insult. More...Vote for this

I already have some hearing loss and this is one of my big fears - being written off when I'm still meantally competent. My father has a unique and jokey personality as well as a desire to ignore anything he finds unpleasant. When he was in hospital, he'd just come back from an exhausting procedure when a doctor he'd never met and a very pushy nurse jumped out on him and started peppering him with questions like "who is the president?" When he replied "dippy dodo," (which is his typical name for any president) they decided he was mentally incompetent to direct his own care. It was very far from the truth and it was fortunate that his kids love him.

Decisions about mental competency made casually and without due care, and possibly by unqualified personnel, are potentially very damaging. What Petaluma says is correct - this may or may not be discrimination, but Fidelity's legal team and some age and disability advocates should 100% follow up on it.

The claimant should further recognize the other factors involved. If they have a large net worth and "frequently" trade only a small portion of that worth, that's one thing; if they have a small net worth and are making big bets, that's another thing entirely - and not related to mental competency.

I really appreciate your sharing about your father, sad situation. You are also correct in your recognition of the factor of net worth involved. Yes everyone has a different risk tolerance dependent on their life circumstances. The employees should all be mandated to have training on age and disability discrimination in addition to review of it's policies, since i do not believe that they had any such training considering their decision to halt my trading. My experience with a hearing problem is that many people tend to judge your intelligence if you do not hear them correctly the first time. Thank you for your reply.

Fidelity and claimant should allow lawyers that specialize in age /disability discrimination to review tapes of conversations More...Vote for this

Fidelity, like any other investment company, has a duty to know its customers. If you really weren't compos mentis and lost all your money through reckless trades, they'd be sued, and rightly so. They also don't have to allow you to be their customer - they're not a public utility.

HOWEVER, that doesn't mean that, as a presumably ethical company, they shouldn't check themselves on discrimination. If what you're saying is accurate, Fidelity decided (on the basis of phone calls with a person with a hearing disability) that he or she is not mentally competent. Since trading is apparently done online, the ability to hear is presumably not usually an issue, correct? Did your patterns of trading show any possible recklessness?

I would strongly recommend for both your sakes that you have a meeting with a lawyer. Fidelity should immediately correct any procedures that could lead to potentially unlawful discrimination against elderly and/or disabled clients.

I am in the dark as to why they made the decision that they did. They only told me to have my POA call them verbally and in writing. If i knew what their reason was for stopping my trading, for certain then i could be more certain the direction to go. Since they asked for my POA to call them to discuss i assume it was due to their decision that i was mentally incompetent. I have incurred heavy losses in the last year in trading but it was just due to a combination of picking the wrong stock at the wrong time and the daily trading of oil stocks , which fluctuate greatly. I did incur a 47% or so loss in the last year so my track record as a day trader is negative. Can they stop me for trading on that basis? Are the funds of all losing day traders restricted? How can I get a copy of the recorded conversation? Can i procure those without an attorney?

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